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Portland's Packy Surrounded By Fellow Elephants In Death

Straw covers Packy's grave in an isolated natural area owned by Metro in Clackamas County. Three other elephants from the Oregon Zoo are buried nearby.

Jaime Valdez/The Portland Tribune

Even in death, Packy is part of a herd.

When the Oregon Zoo’s 54-year-old Asian elephant was euthanized early in the morning of Feb. 9, his large body was hauled more than an hour from the zoo to a natural area east of Portland overlooking the Sandy River. There, Packy was laid to rest in a 12-foot-deep unmarked grave near the resting places of three other Oregon Zoo elephants: Pet, who died in 2006; Rama, Packy’s son, who died in March 2015; and Tusko, who died in December 2015.

It’s an elephant graveyard of sorts, in heavily wooded Metro-owned property south of Corbett and east of the Sandy River in Clackamas County. It has more than 150 very secluded acres, with few neighbors or visitors. A swath cleared through the area is where in early February, under early morning darkness, Packy joined three other elephants in his straw-covered grave among the trees.

Getting to the remote site means leaving the rural area’s paved roads and driving part of the way on gravel. A locked gate limits access to the area Metro has owned since the late 1990s.